


Heros

by feralphoenix



Series: Puer Maledraconis Gulcasa☆Magica [5]
Category: Blaze Union, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Gen, Illustrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For her, it isn't even a choice. All the same--all things considered--that doesn't mean it's something she has to regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Once I can finally lie down on my own bed, I feel like I haven’t slept for a hundred years. Even taking a shower and changing into my pajamas doesn’t really help the sensation of bags under my eyes and sleepless grit in my eyelashes. And despite those really physical sensations to ground me, nothing really feels genuine, like I’m a wind-up doll going through the motions. I want to laugh. My room is the same as it was last night. My things are all dropped in the same places I last left them, but it feels like I’m in some kind of strange parallel world where everything is different.

A lot has happened since… everything with the witch, but it feels like it’s all gone by so quickly. Somehow or other I was able to call the police and then get Gulcasa back home before things got too noisy at the hospital. He never said a word after that—he only barely managed to walk when I dragged him. And I was the one who had to explain things—to his mom and sister, and then to my own sisters and parents. Apparently Siskier’s dad got contacted by the police, and there was a big fuss outside when he came down here to demand to know what was going on. They must not have told him anything, so he lost his composure and came down to interrogate me and Gulcasa—though my dad and Gulcasa’s mom held him off. I’m a little relieved, because I don’t know what I could even say to him or what excuses I could make anymore.

I was sitting at my window when all that happened and didn’t hear all of it, but it sounds like they won’t even let him see her body. …But that’s only natural. I don’t think Siskier would want him to see her like that, and the police who recovered the corpse are probably still trying to make sense out of what could’ve caused the injuries that killed her.

If Gulcasa or I told them that it was a witch, they’d think we’ve gone crazy from the shock for sure. So it’s probably best that we let them come to their own conclusions.

Nobody knows. Nobody is ever going to know. Only me, Gulcasa, Pamela, and that damn transfer student will ever know what Siskier fought against or what she died for.

I roll over so that I can hide my face in a pillow. Even closing my eyes and risking the memories of her remains resurfacing against my eyelids is better than looking at my own bedroom and feeling like everything and nothing is out of place.

I haven’t been able to eat. I should if I don’t want to get sick, but I don’t think I could without throwing up. The nausea from before is gone—I have managed to keep myself from vomiting yet, at least—but I don’t feel any hunger either.

I don’t feel anything much. Just that sense of wrongness. No more grief, no more anger, not even disbelief. I cannot even lie to myself that if I just go to sleep, tomorrow I will wake up and Siskier will still be alive and all of this will have been a dream. The sound of her body hitting the ground, like a rotten melon splitting open, the noise that witch made ripping her apart—my subconscious couldn’t have made those things up. The stink of blood was too real. If I go to sleep now, those realities will just follow me into my nightmares.

The worst of it, what’s been the worst of it all along, is that ever since I realized that I had to take charge—I haven’t cried.

I don’t know if I still can.

 

 

I’m sent over to Gulcasa’s house to look after him during the day.

My family, and his mother and sister, have all gone off to work or school. The two of us have been left here, apparently out of respect that neither of us is in any condition to sit in a classroom and learn.

Gulcasa looks awful. He hasn’t bothered tying his hair up or even changing out of his pajamas, and there are dark circles like bruises underneath his eyes.

Under other circumstances, I might feel awkward about being in a boy’s room. Or at least I’d pretend to be for Gulcasa’s benefit, even though I know he’s safe to be around. But I’m not in the mood to joke about anything, and I highly doubt he feels like engaging with that old charade at a time like this.

He knew her the longest. I need to be gentle with him.

It’s silent for hours. I make tea with milk. Gulcasa doesn’t drink it until it’s already cold, and sets down the teacup with only half the liquid gone. It’s only after a few minutes pass that I realize he’s crying. I try sitting next to him, but that doesn’t help much.

I’m not really hungry. Even if I were, it would probably be better to make Gulcasa cook, just to see if that helps him at all. But we just sit side by side on the bed and stare at the tea tray.

The only thing that’s still anything like yesterday is Pamela, who’s traipsing around Gulcasa’s house examining papers and decorations. She’s smiling and humming tunelessly and it’s horrible. If I’d ever harbored illusions of her being human, this would put paid to them.

It’s like this house has been severed from the rest of the world, drifting loose and lost inside some strange pocket of time, unable to move forward.

I’m sitting on the floor. The tea set is boring to look at. I turn to face Gulcasa, who is lying on his side on the bed with his back to me. His notebook—the one that had drawings of costumes in it—is on the dresser at an awkward angle, one corner jutting out into empty space.

“You don’t still want to be a Puer Magi, do you?”

Gulcasa’s shoulders start to shake. I reach up to pat his hand a little.

“…Yes. I suppose that’s only rational. That’s probably—the right decision.”

“I know it’s unfair of me,” Gulcasa says. This is the first time he’s spoken all day. Probably the first thing he’s said at all since I brought him back here. “I know it’s too late. But I just—when I think of the way she—I just can’t.”

“Siskier was kind.” I’m still talking out loud, like an idiot, like a wind-up doll. “She went to such lengths to show us how strong a will you need to fight… Hey, Pamela—” When I look back towards the middle of the room, she’s standing there staring at us, without her attention wandering like it’s been. I can feel gooseflesh standing up on the back of my neck. “What’s going to happen to this town, now that Siskier is gone? Who’s going to protect people from witches now?”

“Mitakihara has been Siskier’s territory for three years,” Pamela says. “But it’s not like the other Puellae Magi will just let it stay that way. Some other girl or boy will come to take it for themselves soon.”

“But if someone does come here, they’ll be like that transfer student, won’t they? Only caring about getting Grief Seeds…”

“Yeah, totally altruistic Puellae Magi like Siskier are the outliers!” Pamela nods. Her smile looks painted on like a toy’s. “That’s because everybody wants compensation for their work. But the great Pamela thinks that only other Puellae Magi who face the same risks can afford to criticize that.”

I flinch. It’s the first verbal barb I’ve ever heard from her.

Pamela shrugs. “But, oh well! I know how you two feel now, so I gotta go look for people who actually want to make a contract. It was nice meeting you!”

She turns around on her heel and prances out of the room. I can’t hear her footsteps once she’s out of sight. The only sound left in the room is the faint whining noise of Gulcasa’s breathing as he tries to cry quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

Siskier’s funeral is well-attended. Everyone in her class comes to offer incense; so do the teachers, and many other students and adults whom I’ve never seen before. She was well-liked, after all. Many of them have brought flowers. This is made awkward by the fact that this is a closed-casket service. The details of what happened to her corpse weren’t released to the public, and so they must have not taken the time to imagine the damage that could be done to a body in a “freak animal attack”—as the autopsy ruling apparently went. But there isn’t any way that the casket could be opened to show that only half her head is left.

Our incense has already been offered. Gulcasa and I sit to the side of the room. He’s listless like a doll, and his head rests heavy on my shoulder. No one has come to scold him for not sitting properly, not even the priests. Siskier’s father is sprawled over a chair on the other side of the room. Apparently he spent the long vigil after her wake kneeling like that over her casket. It’s surprising and even a little unsightly; he’s not the kind of man who usually lets much emotion show.

My knees hurt from sitting in seiza for so long even though the cushion I’m kneeling on is very soft. My kimono is stiff and its seams itch. We didn’t have any black kimono in the house, so my mother bought black silk ones for my sisters and myself during the days Siskier’s body was being held by the police for their investigation.

I am having a hard time concentrating. I am tired, and my physical discomfort continues to distract me. When the priests were chanting, it sounded like cicadas droning in the distance. Now someone is performing a eulogy. I can’t even bear to listen to it, because there’s so much to Siskier’s life that people who never knew the truth can’t explain.

Jenon is in the crowd waiting to burn incense. The one time he was facing in our direction, I think I saw his eyes rimmed red. He’s wearing a crisp suit instead of a kimono. Even though he complains so much about having to go into his parents’ business—even though it takes up so much of his life, I don’t think I’ve seen him wear anything more formal than a school uniform before. The lines of his shoulders are artistic. I don’t think he’s ever been this handsome.

If I ever needed proof that Siskier was special—that being a Puella Magi doesn’t automatically confer goodness—then here it is. Look at yourself, Yggdra: Your friend, a senpai you trusted and admired, died right in front of you in one of the most horrible ways you can imagine for anyone to die, and you can’t keep your mind on her funeral. You’re getting wet ogling your crush when Siskier’s body is in a coffin on the other side of the room.

I’m a bad girl.

 

 

If the only thing I can do is think a more fitting eulogy to myself, I owe it to her to do it—so let’s talk about Siskier for a while.

I got to know her because she was Gulcasa’s friend, more or less: His mother relied so much on my parents in the beginning that it was unavoidable for my family to get to know his, and be involved in his life. And so my introduction to Siskier was very much connected to the way that she always supported him. She loved him before anyone else loved him. That was clear to anyone with any sensitivity, meaning that Gulcasa himself never quite realized, but Siskier never held that against him. That’s the first sign of how amazing a person she was—I love Jenon, but it’s so painful and frustrating that he won’t ever look at me that I find myself being bitter to people who don’t deserve it. Siskier never did anything like that.

And from my perspective, she lived a less fortunate life. Her parents divorced—she wasn’t in contact with her mother for a whole two years, and her mother hasn’t even come to the funeral—and her important politician father was never home. Even though Siskier sometimes had problems with her father—their temperaments didn’t match up very well, him all fire and brimstone and sternness while she was charitable and silly—they still cared about each other. And for two years she lived more or less alone in that apartment.

It’s not as though no one ever did anything for her, or as though she were poor. But Gulcasa sometimes making her packed lunches because cooking is his hobby, or friends going out of their way to keep her company, just can’t compensate for suddenly having to be self-sufficient at the age of sixteen or seventeen.

And even then, she kept shouldering bigger responsibilities than any of us could ever appreciate. She’s been using all her spare time to defeat monsters and save people, even when that meant risking her life, and not being able to spend as much time with the people she loved, doing the things she enjoyed.

She died trying to save a hospital full of endangered people. She never passed up the opportunity to reach out to people in need. Even as a Puella Magi, she didn’t steal territory from other kids, and she was only hostile to Puellae Magi like that transfer student, who attacked her or other people first. She took her time to kill familiars even though she knew she wouldn’t get anything out of it. She was a hero.

And out of all the people in this room, there are only two of us who will ever know what she really was and why she died.

 

 

I learn that that last bit is, technically speaking, incorrect soon enough: There are three of us.

When Nessiah emerges from the crowd and walks in our direction, he comes in a cloud of incense. He’s not wearing a suit like Jenon or a kimono like mine, not even a dress shirt like Gulcasa; instead he’s wearing a black dress with a ruffle-edged cape. What he has against pants, I can’t imagine.

Gulcasa pushes himself up off my shoulder and runs his hands over his face hastily, probably trying to cover up that he was crying. I can’t blame him for not wanting to show weakness in front of this person, but Nessiah tilts his head to the side and says, “You are blaming yourself too much for this. No one could find fault in you for this outcome, and if anyone tried to do so, I would not permit it.”

I glance to the side. Gulcasa’s face comes up red and he rests his hands along his thighs.

Nessiah stares at Gulcasa, and then at me. His gaze lingers on my hands, folded properly in my lap, and so I realize that when he turns slowly in a circle to scan the room that he’s looking for Pamela. When he’s made one perfect revolution, he looks down at us again and says, “I see you listened to my warning.”

Gulcasa nods. But something in me prickles at his words. Being praised by this person makes me feel as though not becoming a Puella Magi was cowardly, after all.

Perhaps the transfer student is unable to understand that he isn’t wanted here, because he picks up a cushion and kneels down on the tatami in front of us. His seiza is imperfect—his knees are together, but his feet are spread out to the edges of the cushion. I feel superior, then petty for feeling superior until I remind myself that I don’t owe this boy who waited for Siskier to die before defeating the witch any kindness.

I want to tell him that he has some nerve showing his face at her funeral, but I don’t want to get Gulcasa involved in any fighting. Besides, I am unarmed, and there is no telling what Nessiah might be able to accomplish with his magic. In all likelihood, I would be outclassed fighting him as a mere human.

It seems like even Gulcasa is disturbed by Nessiah’s calmness. “Have you seen something like this happen before? Seen someone…”

“Yes,” Nessiah replies when Gulcasa’s voice trails off. “Many, many times.”

I frown. “How many?”

Nessiah tilts his head back to stare at me from the corner of his eye. Almost lazily. “Enough to give up counting.”

A shudder runs through me. Through Gulcasa, too; I can see the ripple of movement magnified in his hair. “If—if I’d listened to you sooner—”

“That doesn’t mean that Siskier’s fate would have changed,” Nessiah says. “I told you that you’re blaming yourself too much. What matters is that I was able to change _your_ fate. It is more than good enough that the two of you were able to avoid becoming Puellae Magi.”

 “Thank you,” Gulcasa says. “For saving us. And—and you brought her body back, didn’t you?”

Nessiah shakes his head. “I apologize for any trouble caused to the two of you by my actions. But I believe that in this case, a number of things were made more convenient by the existence of a corpse. You would be hard-pressed to hide or otherwise explain your grief if no one else were aware that your friend had died.”

_“Convenient?”_ It is a struggle to keep my voice from becoming a shout.

“I told you before that if a Puella Magi dies on the other side, her corpse will disappear along with the barrier barring another Puella Magi’s interference,” he says. His voice is inhumanly calm. “The amount of time before a missing persons report is filed varies from one Puella Magi to the next, based on whether or not she has close family and how much attention she is paid by the society that surrounds her. But with no body to find, they will be a missing person until someone declares them legally dead. This is the end that the vast majority of Puellae Magi face. In that sense, one could say that Siskier was even lucky. It isn’t often that another Puella Magi is present and willing to bring one’s remains back to the human world.”

“That’s horrible,” Gulcasa says. He’s crying again. “It’s too awful that someone could try so hard to save people, and no one would even notice when they die…!”

Nessiah seems unfazed. He shakes his head. Even though he’s mostly been addressing Gulcasa all this time, he looks at both of us seriously.

“That is what Puellae Magi are. To become one of us is to throw everything away for the sake of one single wish. It is our fate to continue fighting—not for anyone’s sake other than our own. We fight to pay for the miracles we asked for. Miracles—true miracles—are really worth far, far more than the life of one human being. But we bought them with that price, you see. We can’t complain if no one notices what we do, or if we are forgotten. It cannot be helped.”

“But I remember,” Gulcasa says.

For a second it’s almost as though Nessiah flinches. But I’m not sure if I was just imagining it. He stares straight at Gulcasa, without even glancing back at me.

“I know what Siskier fought for. Yggdra and I—we know. We won’t forget.”

Nessiah exhales loudly enough for me to hear it. “Then Siskier is blessed with a happiness that not many of us are lucky enough to receive,” he says. And then, more quietly: “It’s enough to make me envious.”

Gulcasa shakes his head. His hair whips against my kimono sleeve.

“We won’t forget you either! Nessiah, I’m never going to forget that you saved me!”

A little crease forms between Nessiah’s eyebrows, and he narrows his eyes. He lifts his hand a few centimeters and then rests it back in his lap.

“You are a very kind person,” he says. “But, please, remember—there are times when being too kind will only bring you to greater grief.”

And he stands up, brushes his skirt off with a flourish, and turns to walk away. Perfect, picturesque movements like a dancer. He’s not very tall, so once he walks into the crowd, I lose sight of him amongst the adults and other classmates.

Next to me, Gulcasa balls his hands up into fists in his lap, biting his lip. His face is pale.

What was that about? I can’t help but get the feeling that for all Nessiah acted civil to our faces, he made sure Siskier’s body remained—orchestrated her getting a funeral and being publicly announced as dead—just so that he could talk to us like this, and impress on us that we shouldn’t become Puellae Magi. It seems like such an extreme length to take, and it’s disturbing: He didn’t save Siskier all so that he could use her death to intimidate us.

 

 

My father goes ahead and calls the school administration to get me permission to take the week off, even though I don’t ask him to do any such thing.

“You have just been through a traumatic loss,” he tells me sternly. “You must not be expected to be able to concentrate in a school environment. If you want to study you can do it here, in comfort.”

“Siskier was our friend too,” Luciana says mutinously over my shoulder. “And Yggdra’s the only one who gets to take a week off? What is _that_ about?”

When I turn around, Aegina is whispering to her, and Luciana doesn’t make any other protests even though she still doesn’t seem happy.

They don’t even have to try to justify it out of my hearing. I already know. I’m the one who saw her die—or just found her body, as far as they’re aware. So they expect me to be the least able to handle daily life in the wake of such a thing. And I’m the youngest, the baby in need of protection, my parents would say.

I don’t like it any more than Luciana does.

It’s good to be cared about, but I’m restless cooped up in the house. There isn’t anything for me to do here. Television, books, the Internet all hold no interest for me when I think of Siskier and the truths that none of my family will ever know. I would think of my classes as just as pointless if I had to attend them, most likely. But at least I would have something to do there.

My mother doesn’t want me going outside—everyone is still worried about the “animal” that killed Siskier—but I’m not like Gulcasa, content to curl up and wait for these feelings to go away. After all those nights and evenings spent patrolling the town with Siskier, I don’t feel right without being able to get up and move around. So I take my kendo sword and sneak out every night.

I don’t see any trace of witches, or even of Pamela. And I have to make sure that I don’t stray too far, so that I can get back inside before I’m missed. But all the same, I at least feel like I’m doing something.

 

 

My week is almost up.

Going to school again is going to mean strict curfews for a while, and even I’m not stupid enough to consider sneaking out to patrol at nights when I’ll have to get up early. I’m not even a Puella Magi myself. I know that my patrols have no meaning.

But even if they’re meaningless in the larger scope of things, I don’t want to give them up. So tonight, instead of turning back for home when I’m done with walking the subdivision, I go further, towards downtown.

I don’t think that anybody will bother a girl with earphones in if she’s carrying a kendo sword, but even if some drunk and insensible person tries to bother me, they’ll regret it. I even catch myself thinking that maybe a fight would be good for clearing my frustration. Even I can tell that’s a silly thing to think—I don’t actually want to have to beat off assailants—but I do want to beat up _something._

Maybe I should be ashamed of that, but I don’t want to pry at it too deeply. I get the feeling that I’m not going to like what I find if I do, and there—do I need any more proof that I’m a coward and only care about myself?

I sigh and lift my head to look out at the city lights. They’re blurred and distant and look like the round, distant spheres of a carnival’s illumination. It reminds me of casino skylines from old retro video games.

When I return my gaze to the crosswalk ahead of me, a familiar school uniform on an unmistakable profile steals my attention. What is he doing out here at this time of night?

I hit stop on my mp3 player and stuff it, earphones and all, into the pocket of my skirt.

“Jenon!”

He doesn’t look at me when I call. That’s strange. Even though he doesn’t flirt with me the way that he flirts with most other girls, it’s unusual for him to ignore me altogether.

“Jenon, are you coming home from cram school—?”

I run the rest of the way towards him. There’s something dark on his neck that makes the small of my back prickle like a warning.

_“Jenon!”_ I yell at last, and grab onto his arm to stop him.

When Jenon swivels around, his eyes are as blank and dreamy as if he’s high on painkillers. He starts to turn away, but I hold on to him, and plant myself in his way.

“Jenon, what’s wrong with you?”

“Oh—Yggdra,” he says. As if he’s a million miles away. The smile he makes is vague.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask, giving him a shake for good measure.

“Where?” Jenon tilts his head to the side, and smiles brilliantly. The dark spot on his neck sticks out worse than ever. “Why… someplace much better than this.”

My hold on his arm loosens for just a moment, and he pulls away from me. “Why don’t you come with me, Yggdra? That would just be marvelous!”

And he keeps walking, gesturing with both hands, exclaiming in a bright and cheerful voice with the kind of overly purple diction he usually saves for pretty girls.

The prickling gets worse, and it feels like my stomach is making a fist.

I’m almost certain that the spot on his neck is a witch’s kiss. In that case, if I leave Jenon alone now, he’ll almost certainly be killed. Just like Siskier was killed. Or he’ll be forced into suicide, like the office lady Siskier saved that first day we went witch hunting with her.

The _go-tell-an-adult_ part of me, the well-behaved baby of the family corner of my brain, is telling me that there’s nothing I can do and that I need to leave this to a real Puella Magi. But Nessiah is the only Puer Magi left in this town, and all he cares about is keeping all the Grief Seeds to himself. Even if I knew his cell phone number or where he lives, I couldn’t possibly leave all this to him.

Jenon is getting further away. I clench my fists and chase after him. There has to be _something_ that even I can do.

 

 

Jenon’s “someplace much better” turns out to be an old factory with an entry forbidden sign knocked onto the ground beside the doorway. He isn’t the only person making his way there—some ten or twenty others are either already inside or staggering their way up the sidewalk towards it. All of them have the same spot on their necks. Jenon walks inside the factory without a care. I follow him. I follow him, but I don’t like it.

I like it less when the door is slammed shut.

Some of the gathered people are just sitting still, grumbling about being worthless. Others stagger towards a ring in the middle of the room. Jenon drifts towards the latter, and I follow him.

There’s a clunk of plastic and a splash, the heavy _glug_ noise of liquid pouring out of a container. I elbow people aside and get a clear gander at an asleep-looking middle-aged sort of lady dumping liquid bleach into a deep bucket. There are other jugs of bleach lined up next to her. A man is standing at her side with a tall can of, according to its bright label, acid-based bathroom cleaner balanced in his hands.

I remember my father lecturing myself and my sisters years ago, when we first started getting household chores to do, and my face feels cold.

“Stop that!” I yell, but when I try to edge in closer, a hot hand on my arm stops me. I turn. It’s Jenon.

“You mustn’t interfere,” he says sternly. With his blissed-out expression, that’s considerably unnerving. “They’re performing a holy ritual, you know.”

I jab a finger at the lady. “If you let them do that, we’re all going to die of chlorine poisoning!”

“Exactly!” Jenon beams at me, half cover-shoot teen model, half teacher proud that his student has finally caught on. “All of us here are going to paradise. Our living bodies would only get in our way. So we’re all going to die, and leave them behind on our new journey. Don’t you see how wonderful that is?”

“Do you even _hear_ yourself?” I yell. “You of all people should know as well as I do that everything is over once you die!”

Jenon just keeps smiling. His hand slides down to mine, and he lifts it up as if he wants to kiss my knuckles like Prince Charming.

“Yggdra, you’ll understand very soon,” he says.

The other people, who must’ve stopped mixing chemicals to listen, applaud. The back of my neck crawls. I yank my hand away and push the witch’s victims back.

There’s no time to think. I grab the bucket and run for the nearest window. I use my kendo sword, still in its bag, to smash the glass, and lift the bucket through it. It spills on the concrete outside with a satisfying clatter.

But the next thing I hear is footsteps, and when I turn around, all the people are trudging towards me like zombies, slowly lifting their hands up as if preparing to grab me.

I rip my sword out of its bag and barrel into them.

The feeling of smacking someone in the stomach isn’t the same as hitting someone wearing protective padding. There’s more give. They knock down easier. My fellow club members don’t grunt when they fall, either—we’re all used to the impact. It’s not painful, or even a surprise.

So maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel real to beat all these people into the floor, even though there’s a stitch in my side, even though I’m starting to get shin splints from running with bad balance. But being able to raise a weapon to Jenon without some kind of sentiment or higher sense of morality holding me back—something in my hindbrain doesn’t like it, and fills my spine with needles as if to punish me.

It ends with some twenty people sprawled flat on the ground and me out of breath. There’s blood someone spat out smudged on the toe of my shoe. I don’t know what to do next. If there’s a witch here, then do I have to carry these people out? Will the witch’s kiss go away in time, or will they all try to kill themselves again? I’m not a Puella Magi like Siskier was, so I can’t erase them—

Something _screams_ and interrupts my train of thought. Flickers of white things—overcomplicated patterns of non-Euclidean lace—trail around the closed-in room. Something like velvet curtains, in colors like muscat and wine, fill in the blanks and shut out the factory scenery.

The smell hits next: Rotting blood, familiar and no less distasteful for it, like a houseful of women have been on their menses for a week and no one has taken out the garbage. The screaming noise comes again. It’s a hawk’s cry, or something like it—I remember from nature documentaries.

I turn in a circle, scan the room: There’s just me with a kendo sword in my hand, and twenty collapsed bodies, and a familiar figure in a gaudy pink dress.

Pamela smiles at me, wide like she knew this was going to happen, and the smile doesn’t reach her eyes at all. The hawk scream tears into my ears again, and I look up.

The witch is up there: A twisted-up ball of wings in every direction, like some pretentious painter’s interpretation of a cherub from Abrahamic religious imagery. It pulls clawed feet from I don’t even know where, draped in rags, and drops toward me with another scream.

I say a word that my father would be very displeased to learn that I know and swing at it. The force I bring to bear just manages to push the monster back, but my sword bends and snaps, listing to the side: Useless piece of shit bamboo. Whack a couple dozen people with it over and over and it held up just fine, but when it _really_ finally counts, the thing crumples like wet paper. I have spares, of course, but those are at home, in case of a freak accident during practice. I cannot believe the only one I am carrying on me in this life-or-death situation decided to snap. It was my only goddamn sword.

While I am making hysterical jokes to myself because my brain is running on automatic, the witch is flapping in an ungainly sort of way, trying to turn around to fall upon us again.

No one is coming. And if anyone does arrive, it will be too late. The witch is going to kill me, kill all these people, just like Siskier died. And then it will go on to terrorize others, until Nessiah or someone else finally gets around to dealing with it.

These poor brainwashed fools will die. I will die. Jenon will die. We’ll all have our guts half-ripped out and die. Our corpses won’t even remain.

I can’t do that to my family. I can’t do that to Gulcasa. I can’t do that to Jenon, and most of all, I _refuse_ to die like that. Pamela is—her being here honestly scares me more than the witch, but I have to focus on how I’m going to do this.

I turn to her. Her smile gets wider. “Are you ready?”

I want to swear at her, but I drop my useless weapon and clench my fists.

“Give me the power to protect these people,” I say, because that is the best option and therefore my only option: I can’t leave them to die, and I have to defeat the witch, and so I just have to keep them safe until I defeat the witch.

Pamela raises her hands to the height of her shoulders and spreads her fingers.

Something pulls in my stomach, and the sudden pain draws me up to my toes. Something is coming out of my body. Something is being strained through my ribcage and filtered into light. It’s a little blue ball, an egg, sending off pale green ripples of light like the surface of a lit-up swimming pool at nighttime.

“Take it,” Pamela says cheerfully. “That’s your destiny. Your wish has defied entropy.”

I am already falling backwards, but I reach out and grab the insubstantial egg of light with both hands.

The first sensation is of being barefoot—my sneakers, my garters, they’re gone in one moment and my legs are wrapped in armor the next. When the rest of my clothes go, I feel it: They sort of melt, effervesce off into thin air, but before my breasts hanging gets to be uncomfortable, everything is pulled back up and in with skintight black fabric. The space right in the middle of my clavicle is hot. I turn and a skirt fluffs out, short, white, like a flower opening up.

I turn again. Fabric runs up my arms, stiffer this time, and then pulls back around my torso in something like a coat, but fused together with the black cloth. My hair, loose a minute ago, is pulled back up at my temples with ribbons. I reach out, pull my hand down through the air, and come back up with a sword. It’s green and black like these clothes, and it seems lighter than a live weapon should reasonably be, but I can _feel_ its sharpness like my senses extend to the air around its edge.

The witch screams again in its raptor’s voice, but when it descends I’m ready. I fling my arm up, all instinct: I couldn’t explain it in sensible terms if I wanted to, but just holding the patterns in my head makes “barriers” form like glass over the bodies of the unconscious civilians. It’s _effortless._ Changing into my new gear and coming up with my weapon took more out of me.

My body is light. When I swipe for the witch, I can get more power out of my arms than I ever thought I could, and when I cut through muscle and bone, it takes about as much pressure as cutting a stick of butter with—to use a trite phrase—a hot knife.

I can jump higher. My sword arm is heavier. I can get more power out of my muscles than I could before. So using my own “shields” for a series of jagged, tilted stairs is natural. Maneuvering until I am higher than the witch—leaping down blade-first to deliver a last blow is, it’s child’s play.

But when I connect—when I hammer the squalling witch down to the velveteen floor—I’m screaming with effort and nerves. The noise it makes on impact is immense. It splits—the world cracks—and I’m standing panting and juddering with adrenaline as the barrier falls away. One Grief Seed, neat and perfectly balanced on its spindle, stands before my feet.

My Puella Magi clothes dissolve, and there’s no lag between that and my body being wrapped in shimmers, then my actual clothes appearing out of the void. The weight of my mp3 player is even still in my pocket.

There’s a ring on my finger that doesn’t belong there, a blue smudge on my fingernail that upon closer inspection is actually dark on the skin underneath the nail itself.

Pamela is still smiling at me from the other side of the room. But I’m alive. Jenon is alive. All the people here—they’re alive.

From the direction of the door, I hear a gentle footstep.

I gather up all my composure and turn, giving my best vindictive smile.

“You’re too late, Mr. Transfer Student,” I say. Nessiah’s eyes are wide. There are furrows between his eyebrows and the skin is starting to scrunch under his eyes like he’s about to wrinkle his nose or sneer at me.

“You—” he says. But whatever else he was going to tell me, he cuts himself off. His fists unfold. He turns a hundred and eighty degrees, skirt billowing out behind him, and disappears the way he came.

I let my breath out.


End file.
